In those days Mary set out and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judah, where she entered Zachariah's house and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped inside her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she exclaimed with a loud cry: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is your offspring! How could this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For you see, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped for joy inside me! Blessed is she who has believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord will be fulfilled!" – Luke 1:39-45 HCSB

Whenever I begin having delusions of grandeur and start thinking that I would like to be known as a great man of God, I am gently reminded by the Holy Spirit of poor prophet Ezekiel.Hashem once told him, “And you, son of man, listen to what I tell you: Do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you.” Turns out, scrolls were on the menu that evening!Then, El Gibhor appointed the unfortunate prophet to go to a mission field that God guaranteed would be fruitless. Ezekiel knew ahead of time that his mission would be a failure, and yet, he was required to go anyway.As if that wasn’t enough, Ezekiel’s first sermon illustration involved taking a brick, drawing the city of Jerusalem on it, laying siege to it with tiny military figures, setting an iron plate between himself and the brick then lying down on his left side for 390 days. At the end of the 390 days, he was to flip over onto his right side for another 40 days! To ensure that Ezekiel would be able to do this, God paralyzed his body!By the time I think through these interesting facts, the desire for greatness has passed. But I am left with an understanding of what is involved in being a worshipper of Bashamayim.I am not required to be handsome (thank Adonai!), strong, smart or gifted. What is required of me is simple faith. Mary received the word of the Lord through the angel Gabriel and her response was “I am the Lord’s slave. Let it be done to me according to your word.”Followers of the Way will instinctively understand the principle discussed here. Discipleship involves absolute subjection of one’s will to the will of the Master. It will involve loss of dreams, but our dreams are often misguided. It will involve loss of face, but our pride only gets in our way anyway. It will involve setting aside relationships, but the only way to truly keep a loving relationship is to be willing to let it go for the right reasons.Elizabeth was right. Blessing - salvation - comes from believing God; from becoming Yahweh’s slave.For a fully referenced and hyperlinked version of this article search the archives at http://pastorpauley.blogspot.com/